Liberal infighting threatens to make nomination debacle even worse

The NSW Liberal omnishambles just keeps on unravelling. Not only has gross incompetence left the party missing candidates for the upcoming local government elections, but now the first signs of open internecine factional brawling are further adding to the mayhem.

When word broke of the party administration’s failure to meet the deadline to nominate candidates, leaving 140 candidates in 16 councils unable to contest next month’s election, we wondered how NSW voters could be expected to have confidence in the Liberals running the state when it clearly cannot run itself.

Instead of accepting blame and moving on, the administration opted to double down and compound failure with stupidity.

Not content with missing the deadline, the hierarchy fiddled while an unedifying brawl erupted between NSW Liberal Party president Don Harwin and state director Richard Shields; and, after Shields was sacked, they threatened to take the NSW Electoral Commission to court unless it gave a one-week extension for nomination.

In an example of bare-faced cheek, one MP even demanded Premier Chris Minns intervene, a curious gambit for a political party that prides itself a stickler for the rules and if the shoe had been on the other foot it is hard to see the Liberals acceding to such a request from Labor.

On Monday Liberal leader Mark Speakman backed his moderate factional colleague Harwin and announced he would support court action. By Tuesday, sanity and legal advice prevailed, and the Liberals backed away going to court. It made Speakman look like a dill.

Little wonder then that former federal director Brian Loughnane is to review how the fiasco occurred. Speculation has also mounted that federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was considering requesting federal intervention in the NSW division for the second time in three years.

But the Liberals have been battling such rot for years. The highly factionalised nature of the NSW branch, evidence of local branch stacking, interference in preselections – remember Scott Morrison installing Katherine Deves in Warringah to wrest Tony Abbott’s old seat from independent Zali Steggall? – and lobbyists moonlighting as party officials have all contributed to undermining the party’s standing within the electorate.

Some of that controversy abated when moderates under Harwin won control and ran the show for a while but the nomination debacle has certainly rejuvenated the right.

It was manifested on Wednesday when radio host Ray Hadley publicly urged two conservative Liberal MPs to challenge Speakman for the leadership. The two MPs denied leaking against the party’s leadership.

The NSW Liberals have been struggling to attract suitable candidates for years without this self-inflicted wound. Of course, it is regrettable for the people of this state that gross incompetence has denied them wider choice and left the Liberals a reduced presence on ballot papers.

More lamentably, the party seems incapable of sober reflection and, instead of accepting the humbling experience and resolving to do better, has opened a new front in the factional rivalry that has wreaked much damage.

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